On Sunday, Sept. 9 the preacher and celebrant at the closing service for the summer season at Trinity Episcopal Church will be the Rev. Richard L. Fenn.

The service will complete the celebration of the church’s 125th year of service to the Oak Bluffs community. As usual, the service will begin at 9 a.m. The church is in Oak Bluffs across the street from the Steamship Authority wharf.

Approval of a mussel farm permit this week may lead to a collegial effort to clean up Menemsha Pond.

In the process of approving Hollis Smith’s aquaculture permit request, conversation expanded to disclose informal discussions between Chilmark and Aquinnah town officials and Wampanoag tribal members to work together to clean the pond.

Menemsha Pond waters lie in both Chilmark and Aquinnah and have been separately maintained by each town historically. The pond has not been dredged since 1971 and “has been dying for 20 years,” Mr. Smith said.

The Vineyard Playhouse is extending its season through September with a limited run of Robert Brustein’s new play The English Channel, a comic and provocative imagining of William Shakespeare’s coming of age as a playwright.

Permanent Endowment

Invites Grant Applications

The Permanent Endowment Fund, the Island’s community foundation, is accepting grant requests for programs addressing Vineyard needs and issues.

“We have unrestricted funds able to support a wide range of programs being developed and planned by local nonprofit organizations and public charities,” fund chairman Debbie Hale said.

By BRAD WOODGER

A public forum will be scheduled soon to discuss cleaning up the West Tisbury Mill Pond, allowing residents to participate in a 60-year ritual that has never provided a lasting solution despite some thoughtful, creative and occasionally bizarre proposals.

Mill Pond aesthetics have engendered great passion for three generations since the property was gifted to the town from Donald R. Campbell. Two schools of thought dominate. There are those who consider the pond a priceless jewel and those who consider it a jewel but at what price?

Phyllis Vecchia begins another of her popular creative drama workshops for children ages four and half to eleven, this fall at the Oak Bluffs School. The classes will be held on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons from 3:30 to 4:45 p.m. Classes begin on Tuesday, Oct. 2, and Thursday, Oct. 4, and run for eight weeks.

The regular August program of the Martha’s Vineyard Garden Club featured Jo-Ann Taylor, the coastal planner for the Martha’s Vineyard Commission for the past 16 years, who spoke about threats to water quality on the Vineyard.

In other club developments, Pat Adler and Laura Lee were installed as president and president-elect.

With two wins already under their belt, the high school golf team is off to a fast start.

Anchored by Tony Grillo, arguably the best young golfer in the state, who recently won his second consecutive Massachusetts junior championship, many already are calling the team a lock to make the state tournament.

But in the match-play style of high school golf, even the most talented player cannot carry a team alone.

According to coach Doug DeBettencourt, young Grillo won’t have to.

Imminent closure of the Edgartown Marine harbor fuel dock because of fire safety violations was averted yesterday, but only after some urgent and at times comic shuttle diplomacy involving state and town officials and the fuel supplier R.M. Packer Company.

A spokesman for the state Department of Fire Services yesterday confirmed that the department is satisfied that steps are being taken by Packer to address a list of violations at the fuel dock ranging from an invalid permit to inoperable emergency fuel shutoff valves.